


Weeks, Months, Years, Decades

by mikasasha



Category: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016), Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children - Ransom Riggs
Genre: Homophobia, M/M, Unrequited Crush, at first, it has a happy end tho.. in case ur worried, this is also very enoch centric, u just gotta read it like idk how to describe this tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-04
Updated: 2016-11-04
Packaged: 2018-08-29 00:01:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8468041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikasasha/pseuds/mikasasha
Summary: It hasn't really ever been alright, has it?





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Français available: [Weeks, Months, Years, Decades](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14454828) by [Mathiiel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mathiiel/pseuds/Mathiiel)



> maybe rushed maybe shitty probably ooc but who knows! its 1 am and im pretty out of it so u guys can be the judge of how awful it is lol

If asked, Enoch couldn't quite pin when he started liking boys. In the way he was supposed to like girls, that is. He can't even tell if he had ever "started" in the first place, or if he's just always been like this.

As a school boy in Scotland in the late 1800's, he would hear other boys talk about girls, and about how they were gross. Enoch had agreed, just because the only other girl he'd ever met was his mother, and sometimes she was pretty insufferable, so he didn't much imagine that other girls would be too different.

But as he grew older, the things the boys would say evolved into very different creatures.

It was a gradual change. Over his years of schooling, it slowly went from girls being "gross" to "annoying" to "not that bad" to "okay" to "lovely" to "perfect to fuck". Enoch didn't know why. To his knowledge, girls hadn't changed. They were still girls.

He knew sex felt good. He had hands and enough alone time to know. He knew that he was supposed to find girls attractive and want to have sex with them. When out in town with his mother, she would point at pretty girls and tease him that he should talk to them. When out in town with his friends, they would hoop and holler at pretty girls walking by.

He knew what to do. But he never did it.

He knew that he should yell at girls walking by when he was with his friends, but he never did it. He knew that when he saw a pretty girl in town when he was with his mother or by himself he should go up to her and flatter her to make conversation, but he never did it. He never cared nor wanted to.

Everyone strangely had seemingly the same opinions on his indifference towards girls at different times. When he was thirteen, it was okay. When he was fourteen, it was him just blooming late. When he was fifteen, it was weird. When he was sixteen, it was sodomy.

"Why d'you never go after any girls?" He was recently sixteen when one of his friends had asked him when they were in town, loitering in front of the corner store one day. He was simply fiddling with his yo-yo while his friends had been going up to (and offending) women.

Enoch didn't know what to say. Didn't know how to explain it. So he didn't look up and just kept fiddling with his yo-yo. "Not interested in any I'm seeing, I s'pose."

His other friend gave a snicker while the one who had asked him just gave him a weird look. "You're peculiar. Look at all the dollies around here in this town! And yet you aren't interested?"

Enoch's friend who had laughed spoke up with a smile, a pop of his gum, and a thick Irish accent. "I'll bet Enoch here's a sodomite. I'll bet m'whole arm."

Enoch's other friend laughed. "Then be prepared to give me your arm! You ever seen Enoch? He's so rugged and manly I'll bet he doesn't even know what a sodomite is."

And Enoch's friend was right. He _didn't_  know what a sodomite was.

"What's a sodomite?" Enoch asked, only half interested, because most of the things these guys said was irrelevant in stupid anyway.

His friend laughed. "See! I told you."

His friend with the gum just shook his head. "Him not knowin' don't make any difference. Y'don't have to know what somethin' is to be it. And bein' rugged and manly don't got nothin' to do with it- why, Betty's father got arrested for sodomy just last week!"

Enoch was taken aback. "Arrested?"

"Oh, yeah." His friend popped his gum again before speaking up. "Sodomy's a crime, don't y'know?"

"I don't know what sodomy even is, but the fact that you lot assume I'm some sort o' criminal isn't making me feel all too swell."

His friends bark hearty laughs.

"Sodomy's just having weird sex." His friend without gum says. "Sometimes it refers to when someone fucks animals-"

"You think I want to have sex with _animals_?!" Enoch yells, earning a few startled looks from passersby on the streets and howling laughter from his Irish friend.

"You didn't let me finish, you idjit! I said _sometimes_! But usually it's when a man fucks other men."

That stops Enoch. Stops him completely.

He had never thought of that. He hadn't even thought that to be possible. It'd always been a man and a woman; his whole life he'd never been told otherwise.

He denied it, of course, and then that was the end of that conversation.

Maybe that's when he started liking boys. Or maybe it was when he noticed that the collarbones of boys peeking from their button ups were rather nice looking. Maybe it was when he went swimming with his friends' friend he had never met before and stared at his torso when the boy wasn't looking. Maybe it was when he first came at the thought of the body of a man when he had his fist around himself.

How he ended up Miss Peregrine's is a blur- he knows his mind represses some of it, and that much lets him know that he doesn't want to recollect it. But he has a distinct feeling that it had something to do with his parents finding out about his interests.

No one in the house knew, of course. Not until Abe.

Abe was a good looking boy, back when he was sixteen. Dare Enoch say, Abe was the first boy he had any romantic interest in.

Abe had a pointed nose and a fun shaped face and a taste for adventure. Enoch had known Abe for a long time, and he remembers the day he told him.

He told him that he liked him. And then Abe never talked to him again.

In the house, he pretended Enoch never even existed. Then Abe and Emma started getting involved, and that was that. Abe would not only never reciprocate his feelings, but would never look at him the same. In a way, Enoch is glad that he's dead now. Just because he can move on.

Holding it in for so long- his sexuality- was horrible. He'd spend nights crying with an ugly face and sometimes he would throw hissies at the slightest mention of Abe or, God forbid, crushes on people. He'd punch holes in walls when he thought about girls for too long, he'd smash glass when he got an erection from the thought of a man's body. He hated himself.

When Jake came along, Enoch easily thought he'd died and gone straight to Hell. Miss Peregrine clicked the stopwatch too little too late, the bomb dropped, and he was in Hell for being a poof.

The first time Enoch laid eyes on Jake, he almost threw up. He laid eyes on Jake's bright blue eyes and weird looking jacket and pointed nose and elf-like complexion and the only word that could cloud his mind was Abe, Abe, Abe, Abe, Abe.

He responded the only way he could. Anger.

The night he met Jake, when he was attempting to sleep, he couldn't do it. All he could do was sob and scream into his pillow, asking God how He could do this to him. How after years, he was finally away from any temptations. Yet now here was Jake, looking just like Abe.

As the days went on, Enoch noticed that Jake is much different from Abe. Jake has more of a quiet stubbornness than what Abe had, and Jake is much more introverted and less involved. He doesn't branch out much.

And too as the days went on, Enoch fell for him. Harder than he could have ever fallen for Abe. When he saw bright blue, he didn't think of Abe's eyes anymore- only Jake's. When it was night in his room and everything was dark, the black he saw didn't ring in his head with Abe's hair anymore- only Jake's.

Weeks. Months. Years. Decades. Enoch doesn't know how long he's felt like this. Enoch doesn't care. All that matters is that he likes Jake- another boy- and he's disgusting and a homosexual and he's going to Hell.

Enoch has begun to hear talk of Jake and Emma becoming involved. Horace has had dreams. Visions.

It's happening again. He really is just Abe, all over again. He wonders if Jake will have a grandson that he'll fall for next, and that grandson will just get involved with Emma too.

He just always thinks and thinks. Thinks of how soft Jake's hands must be and how cute his cheeks are. Thinks of how nice his lips must feel when they're kissed and thinks of how he'd look under the glow of moonlight when it's just them and the stars and no one else- no Emma. Thinks of how Jake's cheeks would go pink when Enoch kissed his neck or called him pet names. Thinks of how Jake is perfect and all he does is just think and think and think.

It's when Olive talks about it that he snaps.

"I think Emma and Jake would be so good together, don't you?" She says behind him while he's fiddling with a puppet, and he stops. He clenches both of his fists around the metal of different robotic limbs, indenting his palms and it hurts but he _doesn't care_. His jaw tightens and his vision blurs and all he can feel is anger and hurt and hate. "Enoch?" Olive asks hesitantly when she notices him stiffen. "Enoch, are you alright?"

" _No_!" He screams, and he slams his hands down on the table, and the metal cuts his palms open. He stands up, knocking back his chair back. Olive jumps back as the chair falls, and when he turns around to face Olive, she looks terrified. "Jake and Emma  _wouldn't_  be good together, just like how she and Abe weren't! Why does she get to have both of them?!"

Olive is quiet, just looking at him with wide eyes and a pale face and shaking, glove-covered hands covering her mouth.

Enoch wants to apologize, but for some reason, he doesn't. Just calms his breathing as much as he can, and goes to pick up the chair. He stops when blood drips onto it.

Olive notices and gives a gasp. "You're bleeding."

Enoch is trembling and he's still furious and he just stares down at his hands. "Yes. I am."

"I'll go get Miss Peregrine-"

"I can clean it myself."

And he just leaves. Straightens out his posture, turns towards and opens the door, and walks out. He walks to the closest bathroom and drips blood on the knob of the cabinet when he opens it. His hands are still shaking when he grabs the supplies, and he can't even find it in himself to hiss when he pours alcohol on his cuts, can't find it anywhere to groan in pain as he wraps up his hands, puts back the supplies, and wipes off the knob to clean it of blood.

Opening the door to the hallway is the only thing that hurts him. He's greeted with the sight of Jake, pursing his lips, wringing his hands, and looking nervous.

"You're, uh- you're louder than you think."

"What on God's great, bloody Earth could you possibly want, Jacob?"

"Are you gay?" He blurts out, and at the lack of change in Enoch's facial expression, he rephrases. "Do you like boys?"

Enoch stops breathing for God knows how long. He tries not to clench his fists in fear of his wounds when he comes back to his senses, and just moves to walk past Jake. But before he can get very far, Jake speaks up again.

"I do too." He says, quick and rushed and scared and it stops Enoch dead in his tracks. "Like boys, that is. I've never liked Emma. I've never liked girls. I don't know why everyone thinks different." They're still frozen for what feels like forever. After years, Jake speaks up again. "I'm not my grandpa. I don't know what went on between you two, but I think me and my grandpa feel really different." The only sound after that is the sound of Enoch swallowing as he tries to choke back his tears. Jake takes his sweet time to speak again. "It's not illegal in 2016. You can even get married."

"Well I don't live in 2016, do I?" Enoch doesn't mean for his voice to crack. "I live in 1943. I always will."

And Jake doesn't say anything. He just hugs Enoch. His arms wrap around him and hold him tight.

"I like you back." Jake whispers.

And for the first time since he was born, he sighs every drop of burden off of his shoulders.

He hugs Jake back, desperately, and breathes in Jake's heavy smell of pine and masculinity and everything is finally okay.

**Author's Note:**

> well how was it
> 
> if it sucks let me know nd i'll delete it
> 
> good night send me anon hate on tunbkr: @memekasasha


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